Re: The Eagles match vs Ireland in November, I'd be surprised if Ireland field their best team. For one, they'll be coming off three matches vs Tier 1 teams, including the ABs the week prior; also, it's just before a pair of key European Champions Cup matches. Since they pair up the 1st and 2nd seeds on back-to-back weekends in December, Leinster will be facing Wasps twice and they'll want some fresh players for those matches. As a former Leinster coach, I expect Joe Schmidt to work with them on that. But even if it's Joey Carbery or Ross Byrne at 10 instead of Sexton, I still expect Ireland to win it. However, it should be a good contest and will be great to see how far the Eagles have come. The APC should be a good warm-up for the MLR-based players, before the players based abroad join in for the November tests.

MLB3BB2 wrote:Re: The Eagles match vs Ireland in November, I'd be surprised if Ireland field their best team. For one, they'll be coming off three matches vs Tier 1 teams, including the ABs the week prior; also, it's just before a pair of key European Champions Cup matches. Since they pair up the 1st and 2nd seeds on back-to-back weekends in December, Leinster will be facing Wasps twice and they'll want some fresh players for those matches. As a former Leinster coach, I expect Joe Schmidt to work with them on that. But even if it's Joey Carbery or Ross Byrne at 10 instead of Sexton, I still expect Ireland to win it. However, it should be a good contest and will be great to see how far the Eagles have come. The APC should be a good warm-up for the MLR-based players, before the players based abroad join in for the November tests.

Yeah IRE will have at least some fringe guys in for that game. trouble is as we saw last year with the 2nd string IRE team in the US and Japan that they were pretty hot themselves. And as I said, it will be the final game of the tour and year for the US. Those games are always hard mentally when you're tired. Players can have one eye on the plane home. And make no mistake by the time the whistle blows for the end of the game in Dublin it will have been quite a long year for many of the US players who started playing in the ARC way back at the start of the year. NZ fans often consider the last game of the year up in Europe a banana peel for ABs. Even in Buenos Aires coming home a couple of times from Europe we almost came a cropper in the early 2000s! Just as well the US guys aren't playing the RC as well! In all seriousness I hope the players get some really decent rest time in July and August, and through to September for the domestic guys.

Figaro wrote:WalesOnline are reporting that Samu Manoa is singing for Cardiff Blues

I love this typo.

How to grow rugby worldwide?Look at the world ranking in July. Teams ranked 1-10 have to play one team from 11-20 (they don't play in a regular competition) away the next year. 11-20 play 21-30 away and so on. Yes, it really is that simple.

Wheeling Jesuit is the alma mater of Eagle Peter Malcolm who didn't play in MLR this year because of an ACL tear. There is another WJU alum playing for Austin but I forget who (Chris Schade?). It was given varsity status around 6 years ago and seemed to be taking it to the next level but apparently the administration isn't giving them as much support as they thought they were going to get - already going through 3 coaches and apparently a decent amount are transferring out.

Not sure if you can read the article without a subscription so here's part of the article (there's a video too and they talk about WJU at around 7 mins).

But Malcolm, who will play for the Collegiate All-Americans against Oxford University in September, saved his strongest words for Wheeling Jesuit. WJU started a varsity program six years ago, but after putting together a playoff D1A program, the administration seemed to sour on the sport. Wheeling Jesuit went through three coaches in as many years and, tellingly, started a football program this year.

"It started to seem pretty evident to me... that they don't care about us as much as they gave the impression six years ago," Malcolm said, adding that WJU "pulled the rug out from under us."

It was clearly a very personal situation for Malcolm, who battled to save the program last year.

Long story short, he should know Malcolm and at least 1 other player in MLR. If anyone was targeting him I'd imagine that it would be Austin.

Adding to my post, here is something else I found about him. Looks like he transferred out of WJU and went to University of South Carolina. He also spent time with the USA 7s residency camp.

Mitchel MacCartney is the first incorporation of the Cajasol Sciences for the 2018-2019 season.Chesapeake, Virginia (USA), 25 years old, 93 kg and 1.88 meters tall, is a powerful player, forceful in defense and very fast in attack. It occupies center positions and can also play wing.He comes from the University of South Carolina RFC. Previously he has played with Wheeling Jesuit University Rugby, Norfolk Blues RFC, USA 7's National Residency Camp and Las Vegas Select 7's (Elite International Devision)Mitchel tells us that he is very happy to come to Science. "I've always wanted to live in Spain, when the opportunity to play with the Sciences became real, I was clear about other offers from Europe"

Florida's an interesting place (and no, not just because there is an entire subreddit called Florida Man). There is no central city....Miami and lots of South Florida is beaches, vacation and immigrants from Latin America; central Florida is Disney and northern Florida is swampland (basically Deliverance). But they've got lots of college football powerhouses like Florida, Florida State and UMiami (well, they used to be).

Fun fact - the guy who convinced Cam Dolan to play rugby is his high school buddy, Shane Young....aka co-founder of Memphis Inner City Rugby. This guy's done great things for USA rugby in more ways than one.

Only reason Kahuku hasn't had a larger influence on the national team has been NCAA Football and academics?

I once played with a dude that set a rushing record there about a decade before I was in high school. Was probably a flanker in his day but was propping on the Bliss team...but lordy could he carry the egg. Never seen vision like that...then we also had a white boy running back from Norwich who legit ran like a runningback with the ball ha.